Firefight
by Urist McAuthor
Summary: A man is dropped into Reach and forced to fight of hordes of aliens using only his wits and scavenged munitions. Contains Blood; Gore; and Swearing


Firefight

Author's Box:

I do not own Halo or any characters that make any appearance whatsoever in the canon. What I do own is the people in this story, even though they get their equipment, background, war, and generally everything else from Bungie and the delightful World Conquerers that live there.  
>_<p>

When Sam woke up, he wasn't in his comfortable-yet-cold bed in a apartment in Tampa, but rather some even colder and certainly less comfy concrete. His first thought was along the lines of: Did I get abducted?

His second thought was why the sign over the door said UNSC, in rather large letters. It was only at this point he realized he was outdoors, the sky was cloudy, and he was quite lacking in the rope department, something any self-respecting terrorist or hoodlum could likely manage to get through their head.

He pushed himself up off the ground, clutching at his head in response to a throbbing headache. Wincing, he made his way indoors, to a harshly lit lockerroom, each metal door emblasoned with a small picture of the Earth and some sort of bird. On a green bench was a backpack, stuffed with ammunition, along with a green helmet, also emblazoned UNSC. It was starting to get odd.

Sam sat down on the bench, grateful to have somewhere that wasn't made for walking to sit or lie down. He stayed a respectful distance from the backpack, in case it's owner should show up to reclaim it. Of course, unless it was that corpse lying against the wall there.

Sam leapt, suddenly awake. There was a dead man, and he was just sitting there, being dead and slimy and why did he have burn marks on him?

"I get the strangest feeling I'm not in Florida anymore." He said to himself, staring in morbid fascination at the corpse lounging against one wall. It's head lolled obscenely, a great black burn turning a scream into a silent laugh, it's eyes still full of hatred. Red blood showed the path where he had slid down the wall, for the corpse was certainly male, and splashes of purple and light blue like fireworks adorned his armor.

Sam eyed the corpse on last time, hoping it was what he thought it was; that is to say, dead. Sitting stock still in the bright light, he could hear the wind outside, blowing a mournful tune.

Sam wasn't entirely ignorant of his situation; He had played the majority of the "Halo" games and knew how to recognize a Spartan, and most of the Covenant, though he couldn't remember some of the names. Oh, yes, Sam knew right where he was.

Waterfront, Reach.

Sam rummaged through the lockers, skipping the locked ones. He couldn't force them open, he didn't even try, but he could search the boxes left open. Most contained letters from home and other sentimental items, but these were discarded in favor of the more useful things. A pistol, a single frag grenade, and 8 clips of ammo. The backpack seemed to be full of some other caliber of bullet, probably a rifle of some sort.

He rummaged some more, but found nothing but a dead helmet, scratched and worn. There was a visor for a Heads Up Display, but it was off, and a minute of feeling around the helmet failed to locate any switch to activate it. He donned it anyway, as it would still deflect projectiles and could save his life if... No, when, the Covenant showed up. He was tempted to pull off the Spartans armor, but it was far too large for him, not to mention heavier than anything he had ever lifted before.

Finally suited up, Sam felt... Rather less than heroic. Here was a young college man with a pistol strapped to his boxer shorts and a inactive helmet out of a videogame, preparing to go fight aliens. It was silly, really. If his mother had been here, she would have berated him. Then, being his mother, she would proceed to tell off the entire Covenant and send them to an early bed without dinner.

But even feeling like a poor kid on halloween, he was better equipped than he was five minutes ago. Progress was progress, and going from unarmed to holding a rather large gun was quite a bit of progress.

Alas, the universe failed to appricate that, as a Grunt waddled happily into Sams introspection. The grunt blinked a couple times.  
>"Sangheili send food?" The creature asked dully.<p>

"Uhh, yeah." Sam agreed, pulling the trigger. The shot went wild and hit the grunt in the shoulder, spinning it around instead of drilling through it's head. Sam quickly fired a second shot which killed the beast.

He felt like he should say something witty. "I, umm, I hope you like lead, 'cause that's what's for dinner!"

He felt just as confident and powerful as he sounded. 


End file.
